Qualified candidates needed for 70 local high-tech positions

By Larry Rulison

Published 10:33 pm, Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Despite laying off about 30 employees last month, GlobalFoundries is in hiring mode as it works to complete a $10 billion build-out of its Fab 8 campus in Malta over the next two years.

The company next week will send a team of recruiters to Hudson, Mass., 30 miles west of Boston, to a computer chip factory that Intel will close by the end of the year. About 700 people work at the factory, which is outdated and makes lower-end processors.

As of Wednesday, GlobalFoundries was trying to fill 70 local job openings — many of them new positions that appear to be related to the company's plan to spend $10 billion over the next two years to complete and expand its current factory, called Fab 8.1.

Another large project at the Fab 8 campus is construction of a $2 billion manufacturing laboratory known as the Technology Development Center that the company will use to perfect its customers' chip designs before they go into commercial production.

There had been speculation last year that GlobalFoundries and Samsung would use the TDC to develop next-generation chips for Apple's iPhone, although GlobalFoundries has never confirmed that. Around the time those rumors were circulating, labor union leaders representing construction workers at the site said the TDC was being redesigned for a new purpose, an assertion the company has downplayed.

Either way, the focus at GlobalFoundries now appears to be improving and perfecting the manufacturing systems at Fab 8.1.

Many of the Fab 8 job openings recently posted to the GlobalFoundries website say the jobs will entail "transferring" technologies from the company's two other advanced chip factories — in Dresden, Germany, and Singapore — to Fab 8 in Malta.

And that also includes jobs the company is trying to fill for the TDC, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year.

"This will involve a short-term assignment to Dresden, Germany, for training and subsequent process transfer into the Malta site," reads the description for a "quality and defectivity improvement" engineer assigned to the TDC.

The focus on expanding Fab 8.1 over the next two years appears to be a slight shift in priorities for GlobalFoundries, which a year ago was talking about possibly building a second, $15 billion factory, known as Fab 8.2.

Although Bullard said last week that the design work for Fab 8.2 had slowed in favor of existing projects, he said Wednesday that the company's strategic direction in New York remains the same.

"We're just continuing to do what we've always said we would do...finish the 8.1 extension, build the TDC, and continue to evaluate the possibility for an 8.2. Nothing has changed."